Death pose
Encyclopedia
Dinosaur
s and bird
fossil
s are frequently found in a characteristic posture consisting of head thrown back, tail extended, and mouth wide open. The cause of this posture—sometimes called a "death pose"—has been a matter of scientific debate. Traditional explanations ranged from strong ligament
s in the animal's neck desiccating and contracting to draw the body into the pose, to water currents randomly arranging the remains in the position.
Faux and Padian suggested in 2007 that the live animal was suffering opisthotonus
during its death throes, and that the pose is not the result of any post-mortem process at all. They also reject the idea of water as responsible for randomly arranging the bodies in a "death pose", as different parts of the body and the limbs can be in different directions, which they found unlikely to be the result of moving water. They also found that the claim that drying out of ligaments would make the position, does not seems believable either.
Alicia Cutler and colleagues from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, think it all comes down to a dip in the wet stuff. Cutler placed plucked chickens – both fresh and frozen – on a bed of sand for three months to see if desiccation would lead to muscle contractions that pulled the neck upwards – a previously suggested explanation for the death pose. The chickens decayed without contorting. When seven other chickens were placed into cool, fresh water, however, their necks arched and their heads were thrown back within seconds. Sustained immersion of the birds for up to a month slightly increased the severity of the pose, but the major movement of the head occurred almost immediately.
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
s and bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
s are frequently found in a characteristic posture consisting of head thrown back, tail extended, and mouth wide open. The cause of this posture—sometimes called a "death pose"—has been a matter of scientific debate. Traditional explanations ranged from strong ligament
Ligament
In anatomy, the term ligament is used to denote any of three types of structures. Most commonly, it refers to fibrous tissue that connects bones to other bones and is also known as articular ligament, articular larua, fibrous ligament, or true ligament.Ligament can also refer to:* Peritoneal...
s in the animal's neck desiccating and contracting to draw the body into the pose, to water currents randomly arranging the remains in the position.
Faux and Padian suggested in 2007 that the live animal was suffering opisthotonus
Opisthotonus
Opisthotonus or opisthotonos, from Greek roots, opistho meaning "behind" and tonos meaning "tension", is a state of a severe hyperextension and spasticity in which an individual's head, neck and spinal column enter into a complete "bridging" or "arching" position...
during its death throes, and that the pose is not the result of any post-mortem process at all. They also reject the idea of water as responsible for randomly arranging the bodies in a "death pose", as different parts of the body and the limbs can be in different directions, which they found unlikely to be the result of moving water. They also found that the claim that drying out of ligaments would make the position, does not seems believable either.
Alicia Cutler and colleagues from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, think it all comes down to a dip in the wet stuff. Cutler placed plucked chickens – both fresh and frozen – on a bed of sand for three months to see if desiccation would lead to muscle contractions that pulled the neck upwards – a previously suggested explanation for the death pose. The chickens decayed without contorting. When seven other chickens were placed into cool, fresh water, however, their necks arched and their heads were thrown back within seconds. Sustained immersion of the birds for up to a month slightly increased the severity of the pose, but the major movement of the head occurred almost immediately.
See also
- ShenzhousaurusShenzhousaurusShenzhousaurus is a genus of basal ornithomimosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of China.The holotype was collected from near the bottom of the Yixian Formation at the Sihetun fossil site, Beipiao, western Liaoning Province...
- fossil found in death pose - TaphonomyTaphonomyTaphonomy is the study of decaying organisms over time and how they become fossilized . The term taphonomy was introduced to paleontology in 1940 by Russian scientist Ivan Efremov to describe the study of the transition of remains, parts, or products of organisms, from the biosphere, to the...